So this is the deep end

Been away for a while, but it's been productive time. Got rid of some stumbling blocks that have been preventing me from building a website, and found a glaring error in my current book that I can fix. Claudia has been published, again, so now she and I have started a little book collection of our successes.

I also, as of tonight, put together a query package for Roja and sent it to an agent. What comes to mind is the moment a few (cough) years ago when I was young and didn't know how to swim. I was in a pool with some other naïve kids listening to a nice lady explain how to not drown when I took a step forward to get some space around me. The water was clean but not clear, so I didn't know I had been standing on a raised platform against the side of the pool and suddenly the cold, heavy water was six inches deeper than I was tall. I remember treading water, or doing something like it, and realizing I was suddenly in very deep shit. I've had that same feeling once or twice since then, but there's nothing like the first time.

Fortunately, I didn't drown, because the nice lady patiently picked me up and got me back on the platform. I learned how to swim, and ended up doing my part to teach a brand new generation of naïve kids how to not drown a few years later. Hitting the send button tonight was like taking that one extra step all over again. Yep, this is cold, heavy water, and boy is it deep.

I'm not going to name the agent. The research I've been able to do clued me in on the incredible amount of BS that already gets flung at people who do that job, and the last thing I want to do is add to the pile. Trust me, if things go well people will hear me singing their praises from the rooftops.

Now? Well it's time to wait. I'll touch base with all those people who are reading In The Dark for me, catch up on all the reading that I've fallen behind on, and get back to plugging away on The Red Man Burning.

It's time to write.

Back in the saddle

With all the other stuff on the burners, it's been a while since I sent anything out into the cold, cruel, world. Unfortunately, the world has not yet beaten its path to my door to throw money at me. Bummer. Guess I still have to pitch my stuff like everyone else.

So this week I've sent an old short story set in the Great Dustbowl to Burnt Offerings Books, and less than a minute ago I shot an angry little piece off to The Dark, a magazine that publishes dark fantasy. Both stories are ones that hit you in the heart, as well as all the nerves that run down your spine. Being in love doesn't stop you from needing to put food on the table, and anger can do a lot if you just focus. Fame and fortune can't be far behind, right?

Snicker.

Our new dog is slowly coming to grips with the fact that the cats are not going to ever be the sort to enjoy big, sloppy licks in their faces. The cats are absolutely refusing to accept the possibility that this big, funny-looking stranger with a cold nose is going to be around for the duration. Diamond keeps trying to give her new pact mates a friendly sniff, but one hiss and she runs away whimpering. Try to imagine a puppy with the awkwardness of a teenager who is terrified of two cats a quarter of her size, but who jumps between a stranger and my wife, barking and growling, when that stranger appears unannounced. Fortunately, the 'stranger' was a friend who had just changed clothes and her hair.

Still pounding on In The Dark, and still working on what I want my website to look like.

Still writing, now with a dog sleeping at my feet.

Wait, I wrote this?

After enjoying Saturday as the first day off I've had in two weeks, I spent Sunday running Welcome Home through a rewrite, trying to get it ready to submit before I called it a night. According to my spreadsheet (yes, I keep track of these things. Don't you?) the last time I sent this story out was three months ago. Shame on me for letting it sit idle that long.

This was an annoying rewrite for a couple of reasons. First, this is one of the older stories that I have. I worked on this thing when I lived up in the panhandle, and part of the reason it sticks in my head so well is because I busted my butt researching it. It takes place in North Carolina, an area that I have a passing acquaintance with from my days of being stationed at Camp Lejeune. But it covers a lot of past history of a fictional small town, and I wanted to do such a place, and the state it sits in, justice. So I checked out books from the library and dug into online databases for information on everything from the logging and tobacco industries to what kind of birds might be found in such a place. Now imagine how I felt when I gave this story, which I think is damn good, a read-through Sunday and noticed how all that liberally applied knowledge was dragging the tale down like a lead weight tied around a sprinter's big toe. I chopped the history and wildlife down a bit and saved three hundred words. It's still a large story, but the smaller size makes a wee bit more sellable. That'll help ease the grousing over the feeling, maybe justified, maybe not, of so much time going to waste.

Second? Well, as I just mentioned, I like this one. When I finally put the last comma on the last rewrite, I got one of those rare highs that you sometimes feel when you can look at something you've made and you can't help but channel your inner Keanu Reeves and just say, 'Whoa.' Maybe it's vain, but I sometimes read my own stuff after enough time has passed from writing it. I know the story, but the little details get lost in day to day life, and that's a good thing. It keeps me from obsessing over something I've put the 'finished' stamp on, and it lets me write something else. Only this time when I went back, all those really cool details were there, but so were a hell of a lot of things that quickly earned the label of 'What is this crap?' There were descriptives and ramblings that sounded like a fourth grader wrote them after discovering Edgar Allan Poe. If they were in published books, they would be the books you shove under the couch when company dropped by. What made it so damn annoying is that I have submitted 'Welcome Home' to more than one publication, and proofread it. This story has gone out with my name on it and with me singing its praises in my own head each time. Either my doppelganger crept up here and screwed with the file, or my viewpoint has changed in the years since I wrote it. Now that could be a good thing, sure. Hell, I can't think of any circumstance that would keep it from being a great thing. But looking at the story as it was, I have got to admit that the editors were right to reject it. If I was in their shoes, I would have rejected it too. That makes me a bit less confident that all the other stuff that I've sent out is up to par.

But enough reflecting. Time to get back to writing.